"A reward beyond your wildest dreams!"

[Oryan77]

Well, basically if you're asking someone to risk their life, that's risking ending up with truely nothing. Double or nothing tends to be viewed as fairly reasonable for 50/50 odds. That means the reward has to be pretty high if the adventurers are really risking their life.

I have learned one thing though from the last 2 sessions...I know that, "I don't like that reward, give us a day to think about it some more" really means, "I don't want that reward, I need a week of real world time to look up magic items in the D&D books and pick the most powerful item I can find that my PC might know about and ask for".

I can totally reason with requesting a large fortune, even doubling your current wealth. But even you mention "fairly reasonable" I have players that you'd probably label as powergamers who don't ask for "reasonable" rewards. You say doubling their wealth...they say x10 their wealth. For example:

A players 5th lvl PC asks an invisible but obviously powerful person to give him an 82,000gp magical mace to risk his life on a mission. Now granted, the mission might sound insane, but the guy wouldn't ask the PC to do something suicidal...he'd find someone more capable to do it if he didn't think the PC could. I mean, this PC has maybe 1kgp to his name (if that much) not including the equipment he bought with the 9k starting gold. I can understand asking for 20k, maybe even 30-40k (not that he'd get it), but 82k gp? This is just one guys reward, there's still 4 other people in the party demanding rewards similar to this guys haha.

Just because the guy might be able to afford all of that doesn't mean his mission is worth that to him. He can find others to do it MUCH cheaper. My concern is just the fact that players do this. It's funny when I think about it.

 

[lonesoldier]

Ya, I hate how the gold piece is a standard. Yes, merchants deal in them, as does the nobility, but the adventurers are probably neither. Considering a common labourers wage is a silver piece per day, it is very unlikely that they will save up enough to trade the silvers in for a gold, and even then IMC the silver is a more flexible coin. Take a gold to the tavern, maybe all the people in there could scrape together the change for it (don't even think about a platinum coin, most peasants won't see anything worth 100 silvers in their whole life).

@ Oryan:
Just have your NPCs tell your players that they cannot afford that high a cost, and if they are skilled enough to charge that much then they are over-qualified for the job. That will make them drop their prices. :b

 

[Oryan77]

over-qualified for the job.

Over-qualified, haha I like that. Didn't think of it that way

 

[S'mon]

I have no problem with eg the Archduke of Colladel giving the 12th level PCs 400,000gp for the Harmonic Armour of Gutheron, as happened IMC - the Archduke is raking in 100,000gp/month, it's a lot but he can afford it. Most of the time the PCs in my game are "poor and under-equipped for their level", to quote the DMG. Yet they can still dream of that Big Score - the Harmonic Armour netted them 80,000gp each. Keep the PCs poor most of the time (I use NPC wealth by level as a guide) and they can get the big hoard without breaking the game.

 

[S'mon]

The 18th level PC King IMC just made 400,000gp as tribute from a country who wanted his barbarian horde to go away, please... I'm somewhat regretting saying "You can use some of that to buy magic items".

 

[Anabstercorian]

Think of it as saying, "You can use that to commission adventurers to run off and find you magic, and wizards to forge great magic using the services of the adventurers" and you'll feel better. What's Harmonic Armor do and can I have some?

 

[S'mon]

Think of it as saying, "You can use that to commission adventurers to run off and find you magic, and wizards to forge great magic using the services of the adventurers" and you'll feel better. What's Harmonic Armor do and can I have some?

The Harmonic Armour of Gutheron of Org is effectively fantasy power armour; +2 Half Plate, the helm telepathically links the wearer to the armour and the armour follows the wearer's motions with its own strength, adding +20 to the STR of the wearer. It gives Archduke Ulfius (Ftr-19) effective STR 40, with his Bloodhammer (Hammer of Thunderbolts, crushes limb on a crit) he's quite fearsome... It's a 'minor artifact'.

 

[yennico]

The Harmonic Armour of Gutheron of Org is effectively fantasy power armour; +2 Half Plate, the helm telepathically links the wearer to the armour and the armour follows the wearer's motions with its own strength, adding +20 to the STR of the wearer. It gives Archduke Ulfius (Ftr-19) effective STR 40, with his Bloodhammer (Hammer of Thunderbolts, crushes limb on a crit) he's quite fearsome... It's a 'minor artifact'.

I like the idea of the armor.
What are effects of a crushed limb?
how you determine which limb is crushed without a hit location table?

 

[Hand of Evil]

Adventuring is a job, it pays the bills. You have cost of living, you have taxes, you have medical bills, you have repairs...in RL you work to pay your bills and in the game that should be a reason too, you still have taxes, you have guild fees, you have upkeep of animals, you have payroll to meet for hirelings, you have family members needing money, you have to give to the local church (15%).

What they get may not be what they get.

 

[Hand of Evil]

You also have to think about other forms of rewards, titles, recognition, standing, praize, and such come to mind. I have given the reward of marriage to a player.